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Description
Light shines down from an open window, curtains blowing every few seconds as a small breeze picks up bringing in scents of a barbeque one of the neighbors is having. It takes a while for me to remember everything that had happened and I wonder if I was being born again, wrapped in a cocoon of towels. I stay still and focus on the softness of the cloth against my tender underbelly; my scales still gummy soft yet as glossy as ice. They would remain as such for about a week before they harden, but once they did they would be as hard as diamonds. Yawning squeakily I slip out of the towels, which slide off my back, and stretch catlike before exploring the box a little. The egg fragments had been removed and fresh clean towels had been supplied making a neat and cozy little nest. The woman was sitting over on a faded leather sofa, reading a book while listening to a radio on the coffee table. She looks over her book and watches me secretly, pretending she hasn’t noticed that I’ve awakened. I look in her direction momentarily to see if she was watching and peer down over the side of the box again, finding that it’s already on the floor.

I slip over the side slowly, cautiously, and my paw sinks into the carpet. I hop back into the box and reach a paw back over to prod at the carpet. Seeing it’s safe, I slip over again unceremoniously and start exploring my new environment. Looking around and surveying the room I see several interesting things, unable to decide which to inspect first. I flop down in the middle of the room looking left and right, lying down on my belly with paws tucked under. On one wall a large fireplace rises up like a skyscraper, unlit it looks a lot different from what I had seen peeking through the cracks in my egg. I rise to my paws and pad over to the large thing, curious as to its purpose. The grate is closed, preventing me from exploring further but the scents of burned wood and ashes, lighter fluid and brick waft out from the screen. Sniffing along the bottom of the grate I move from one end to the other before losing interest and continues seeing what else there is to see. Scampering over to the adjacent wall, I find that I can see through it into another world!

The sliding glass door is open, allowing the wind to blow through the screen and grace across my scales. It incites bliss almost on a primal level, eliciting ideas of flight and visions of racing above open fields. Instinctively I open my wings a little, letting the wind catch on them. This most wonderful of feelings holds my attention for a long while, so much so that I forget about the rest of my exploration and just enjoy the moment. The wind dies down a little and, sensing it was time to keep moving, I turn around and head towards the opposite wall. A door leads into the kitchen, the two rooms separated only by a bar, and a small square table with two chairs is tucked neatly against the corner. On my way across the room I stop in front of the woman in her chair, no longer pretending not to watch me she holds her book in her lap and leans over to run her finger over the soft spines on my back. I hop backwards before she can make contact but inch forward again, my nose wiggling as I sniff at her hand. Slowly she moves her hand out to pet my head again, smiling softly as I let her this time.

She picks me up and puts the book on the coffee table next to her, setting me in her lap. I look over at the book and the strange object making the noise, I clumsily amble my way over to it, making the small leap onto the table. I walk up to it and prod it with my nose, instantly liking the nice relaxing instrumental that was playing. She slowly reaches over and presses a button on it and suddenly it changes to a Heavy Metal station. Wailing electric guitars scream out their song as the pounding drums roll their beat, I bolt off the table entirely and land lightly on the carpet several feet away on my feet and turn to watch the thing from a safer distance. She laughs lightheartedly, watching as I slink embarrassedly on towards the kitchen. Again the terrain changes entirely, this time from carpet to slick tile. The glossy black squares seem safe enough, cold to the touch and a bit slippery. I slowly and carefully make my way out into the middle of the floor and look around, spotting some movement off in the corner. Heading over that way, I find the movement to be a trail of ants, marching along in a steady line towards a small black object. I take a sniff at it and cringe, backing away a little at the scent. Turning back to the ants I sit down and reach out to them with my mind, curious as to what I might find.

Unable to enter just one mind, I enter a single collective mind from all of them at the same time, even the ones who were apparently back at the nest. My curiosity towards them and their little trail transmits to them and they respond, instantly sharing everything there was to know about the ants and their lifestyle, the food they were gathering for the colony, it seeming to be one single creature in many pieces. A couple scouting ants had made their way towards me and were investigating, it seems odd to have the images of myself floating in my mind, but what strikes me the most as odd was how the ants saw the world. Instead of seeing forward, or left, or up or down, they saw the world radially, spherically, outward in all directions at once. So much information was sent over from them, such a history of their existence, I reel a little from the overload and just watch them walking along for a while. As soon as I recover, I follow the trail and find it leads into the black thing. Watching them move inside, I notice that none of them come back out. Eventually they stop moving inside, realizing it is poison and disperse, returning to the nest or moving on to find other food. A couple of ants were curled up on the floor, already feeling the effects of the poison.

Focusing on these ants, I narrow down my field of thought to their group of minds. Worried, I reach out a claw to nudge one of them gently but she doesn’t move. Realizing that she was fading I quickly reach out to her mind in hopes of finding some way to save them, but surprisingly she was not worried at all. She had only been alive for a couple weeks, yet already she had learned so much and lived so much more than I had and already it was over. Lying next to the group of ants I hold onto their minds for as long as I can before they slip away and finally flicker out, watching over them in a silent vigil. One last tidbit of knowledge drifts across from them to me, more of a wisdom than anything else, such a deep appreciation for the little bit of time I had lived so far and the gift I had been given. I decide right then and there that I would always enjoy the life I have, however long or short it may turn out to be.

Description
Light shines down from an open window, curtains blowing every few seconds as a small breeze picks up bringing in scents of a barbeque one of the neighbors is having. It takes a while for me to remember everything that had happened and I wonder if I was being born again, wrapped in a cocoon of towels. I stay still and focus on the softness of the cloth against my tender underbelly; my scales still gummy soft yet as glossy as ice. They would remain as such for about a week before they harden, but once they did they would be as hard as diamonds. Yawning squeakily I slip out of the towels, which slide off my back, and stretch catlike before exploring the box a little. The egg fragments had been removed and fresh clean towels had been supplied making a neat and cozy little nest. The woman was sitting over on a faded leather sofa, reading a book while listening to a radio on the coffee table. She looks over her book and watches me secretly, pretending she hasn’t noticed that I’ve awakened. I look in her direction momentarily to see if she was watching and peer down over the side of the box again, finding that it’s already on the floor.

I slip over the side slowly, cautiously, and my paw sinks into the carpet. I hop back into the box and reach a paw back over to prod at the carpet. Seeing it’s safe, I slip over again unceremoniously and start exploring my new environment. Looking around and surveying the room I see several interesting things, unable to decide which to inspect first. I flop down in the middle of the room looking left and right, lying down on my belly with paws tucked under. On one wall a large fireplace rises up like a skyscraper, unlit it looks a lot different from what I had seen peeking through the cracks in my egg. I rise to my paws and pad over to the large thing, curious as to its purpose. The grate is closed, preventing me from exploring further but the scents of burned wood and ashes, lighter fluid and brick waft out from the screen. Sniffing along the bottom of the grate I move from one end to the other before losing interest and continues seeing what else there is to see. Scampering over to the adjacent wall, I find that I can see through it into another world!

The sliding glass door is open, allowing the wind to blow through the screen and grace across my scales. It incites bliss almost on a primal level, eliciting ideas of flight and visions of racing above open fields. Instinctively I open my wings a little, letting the wind catch on them. This most wonderful of feelings holds my attention for a long while, so much so that I forget about the rest of my exploration and just enjoy the moment. The wind dies down a little and, sensing it was time to keep moving, I turn around and head towards the opposite wall. A door leads into the kitchen, the two rooms separated only by a bar, and a small square table with two chairs is tucked neatly against the corner. On my way across the room I stop in front of the woman in her chair, no longer pretending not to watch me she holds her book in her lap and leans over to run her finger over the soft spines on my back. I hop backwards before she can make contact but inch forward again, my nose wiggling as I sniff at her hand. Slowly she moves her hand out to pet my head again, smiling softly as I let her this time.

She picks me up and puts the book on the coffee table next to her, setting me in her lap. I look over at the book and the strange object making the noise, I clumsily amble my way over to it, making the small leap onto the table. I walk up to it and prod it with my nose, instantly liking the nice relaxing instrumental that was playing. She slowly reaches over and presses a button on it and suddenly it changes to a Heavy Metal station. Wailing electric guitars scream out their song as the pounding drums roll their beat, I bolt off the table entirely and land lightly on the carpet several feet away on my feet and turn to watch the thing from a safer distance. She laughs lightheartedly, watching as I slink embarrassedly on towards the kitchen. Again the terrain changes entirely, this time from carpet to slick tile. The glossy black squares seem safe enough, cold to the touch and a bit slippery. I slowly and carefully make my way out into the middle of the floor and look around, spotting some movement off in the corner. Heading over that way, I find the movement to be a trail of ants, marching along in a steady line towards a small black object. I take a sniff at it and cringe, backing away a little at the scent. Turning back to the ants I sit down and reach out to them with my mind, curious as to what I might find.

Unable to enter just one mind, I enter a single collective mind from all of them at the same time, even the ones who were apparently back at the nest. My curiosity towards them and their little trail transmits to them and they respond, instantly sharing everything there was to know about the ants and their lifestyle, the food they were gathering for the colony, it seeming to be one single creature in many pieces. A couple scouting ants had made their way towards me and were investigating, it seems odd to have the images of myself floating in my mind, but what strikes me the most as odd was how the ants saw the world. Instead of seeing forward, or left, or up or down, they saw the world radially, spherically, outward in all directions at once. So much information was sent over from them, such a history of their existence, I reel a little from the overload and just watch them walking along for a while. As soon as I recover, I follow the trail and find it leads into the black thing. Watching them move inside, I notice that none of them come back out. Eventually they stop moving inside, realizing it is poison and disperse, returning to the nest or moving on to find other food. A couple of ants were curled up on the floor, already feeling the effects of the poison.

Focusing on these ants, I narrow down my field of thought to their group of minds. Worried, I reach out a claw to nudge one of them gently but she doesn’t move. Realizing that she was fading I quickly reach out to her mind in hopes of finding some way to save them, but surprisingly she was not worried at all. She had only been alive for a couple weeks, yet already she had learned so much and lived so much more than I had and already it was over. Lying next to the group of ants I hold onto their minds for as long as I can before they slip away and finally flicker out, watching over them in a silent vigil. One last tidbit of knowledge drifts across from them to me, more of a wisdom than anything else, such a deep appreciation for the little bit of time I had lived so far and the gift I had been given. I decide right then and there that I would always enjoy the life I have, however long or short it may turn out to be.